


Hear The Ocean

by SusieBeeca



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: And Bismuth thinks it's adorable, Biology, Butch/Femme, Discovering Earth, F/F, Pearl is a nerd, Romance, Science, Slightly suggestive, earth is weird, long walks on the beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 19:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15956033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusieBeeca/pseuds/SusieBeeca
Summary: Pearl and Bismuth go for a long, romantic walk on the beach, and find something bizarre to speculate about.





	Hear The Ocean

Pearl’s voice was so sweet, soft and low like the sea breeze. “Isn’t this lovely?”

Bismuth pressed her toes together, grinding the sand between them. She appreciated Pearl’s gesture, but honestly, her idea of romance had more to do with sparring and roughhousing than a long walk on the beach. Even the idea of a “beach” was foreign to her.

“It _is_ nice and romantic, Pearl, but…” She shook her head with a wry grin. “Look, I’m not gonna lie---this ‘Earth’ is kind of a freakshow.”

“I don’t believe there are many planets like this,” Pearl agreed as she watched the beginnings of high tide come surging in. She gently patted her lover’s arm, silently acknowledging the discomfort she was still too proud to openly admit to. “Liquid water is rare enough, but there’s something else. Look,” she said, pointing to the afternoon sun. Higher above, the pale crescent of the Moon glowed faintly. “Isn’t it amazing? Despite being wildly different sizes, Earth has a mother star and a natural satellite that appear the same size in the sky! They can eclipse each other! What are the odds of that?”

“Uh… rare?”

“Nearly impossible,” Pearl finished with a confident smile and a nod. “In fact, if you’d told me about it before I came to Earth, I’d have said it was impossible!”

“Anything’s possible, Pearl. I mean, what are the odds of some gabbro like me ending up with a pretty Pearl like you?”

“Oh, stop that!” she said with a light swat to her arm. Then, her eyes and smile growing, “Bismuth, you’re wonderful. Don’t doubt that.”

She could feel something inside her melt, something she’d always held tight and clenched. “Thanks, Doll.”

Her lips parted, a fresh thought on her mind, but then she glanced to the side and noticed something new. “Oh, look!”

The arm Bismuth had looped around Pearl’s shot out as her lover went running off to grab at whatever had caught her attention, and she just had to grin at the innocent enthusiasm. What could have been a short walk on the beach had been interrupted every minute or two by her seeing some new marvel and rushing over to pick it up, then bringing it back to Bismuth with an encyclopedic explanation. _“This is a type of seaweed only found in the Northeast of this continent! It’s very high in magnesium!”_ Bismuth spent most of it nodding and “Mm-hm”ing, but the way Pearl’s eyes would light up like sunshine… it never got old.

This time she was running back with something a lot more interesting to look at than a slimy piece of seaweed. It kind of looked like an Earth attempt at a gem having an identity crisis---covered in spikes too rounded to be straight, the body of the thing curving not quite enough to be circular. While it was pretty to look at, it seemed to be one of Nature’s many mistakes.

Bismuth squinted at it. “I think I built a spire that looked like that once. We got paid in drinks, and the payment was upfront.”

“…Mm.” Pearl got that fuzzy look that always plagued her, however briefly, when Homeworld was mentioned. The joke seemed to go right over her head. “This used to be a creature’s home. I’m sure it’s long since dead.”

“Well, easy come, easy go.” It seemed odd to her that Pearl was lingering so long with this brittle artifact; she’d never been one to get sentimental over the disposable carbon blobs that littered the surface of this planet.

“It’s called a conch shell.” She turned it over in her hands, a little smile ghosting across her lips as she mused. “Humans say that when you hold this up to your ear, you can hear the ocean.”

Bismuth had to bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud. “Why would they want a shell to make that sound when they’re standing right next to the real thing?”

“Because humans are ridiculous creatures.” But then the cynicism thawed, if only slightly. “Maybe it’s their way of taking it with them, no matter where they go.” Whatever had been hesitating on her face ebbed away; with both hands cupped under it, Pearl held the conch out to her lover, her eyes wide and entreating.

With a chuckle, Bismuth shrugged and extended her hand. “Okay, I’ll bite. Give it here.”

It was surprisingly heavy, and she spent a moment running her fingertips over the protrusions on its exterior. Rough and ugly on the outside, but smooth and milky underneath that armour… she didn’t want to admit it, but there really was something off-putting, something confusing about this dead organic husk. Bismuth lifted it to her ear, brushing away a dreadlock, and waited.

And waited.

When it became clear that nothing was going to come from the experience, Bismuth dropped the shell from her ear and stared down at it with barely-restrained disgust. “Pfft. Is that it? I haven’t had a let-down like that since I went home with a Prehnite.”

“Oh, _Bismuth._ ”

Before she could tack on another joke, Pearl’s tiny white fingers came curling around the conch, and she took it in a protective grip; pulling it away from Bismuth’s palm, she brought it towards her chin and lit up her gem. Still as she was, the fine cone of light sent pale pink reflecting across her cheeks.

“The only reason humans think they hear the sea in here…” She dipped her head downward, as if she was peering into the rosy folds. “Well… it’s because their heartbeat echoes inside.”

Scratching the back of her neck, Bismuth let her gaze drift away from her lover. She tried as hard as she could to focus on the splifs of foam that splashed over the sandbanks, but her eyes kept moving to Pearl and that shell. “So you’re telling me that humans are even dumber than we expected?”

“No.”

That’s when the surf crashed up against their ankles, and Bismuth glanced down. Under the translucent film, she could see tiny flickers of fish; they looked like licks of quicksilver as they edged the border and went swimming back to the sea.

“Humans might be simple,” Pearl began, “But they can be complex at the same time. They saw something as ordinary as this…”

She wound the shell around in her hands, and her grip went from a tight clutch to almost cradling.

“…And they found magic in it.”

Bismuth blinked, and she looked at the conch with new eyes. She hadn’t noticed its heavenly spiral before. Its cheeky blush of rose seemed new, too. A creature had _lived_ in there? She of all gems knew how hard it was to construct an edifice without straight lines, but somehow this planet had birthed something so like a paradox, fragile and sturdy all at once---and humans chose to hear it speak poetry.

What else had she been missing? What else was this alien planet hiding from her?

Pearl suddenly looked startled. “Oh, Bismuth! Are you crying?”

One long, hard snort, and everything had been sucked back up. “No! Of course not!”

“Of course not,” Pearl repeated, then gently slipped her arm in the crook of Bismuth’s elbow. “Would you like to keep that?” she said, nodding to the conch.

“Oh, what the hell, sure.” She rolled it in her palm so that its open pink mouth was pouting up at her. “In fact, I think it’s giving me some ideas.”

“Such as…?”

Bismuth furrowed her brows in sarcastic speculation. “Know what this shell reminds me of?”

With a smirk, she bent down and whispered in Pearl’s ear… and then let out a hearty laugh when her lover’s face flushed a deeper blue than the sea. “Bismuth!” she hissed, hands up to her burning cheeks. “How could you say something like that?! The conch is _nothing_ like my---”

“Yeah, you’re right,” she said as she tugged Pearl a little closer. “The real thing is a lot softer.”

**Author's Note:**

> Did I base a whole story on a bit of science trivia I learned when I was in Grade Six?
> 
> ...Yes. Yes, I did.
> 
> I'm not sure exactly when this is set, but it's pretty close to when Bismuth first landed on Earth. And, believe me, we ARE on a truly weird planet.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading!


End file.
